


Blackfell

by trr_rr



Category: Rhett & Link, The Witch (2016)
Genre: AU, Animal Death, Death, Epistolary, Horror, Illnesses, M/M, Madness, Multi, Murder, POV First Person, Rituals, Starvation, Witch Curses, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-25 21:51:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13221963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trr_rr/pseuds/trr_rr
Summary: Rhett Mclauglin and Lincoln O'Neal move to the empty Blackfell cabin. Surrounded by woods on three sides their new home is well sheltered from the wind but not the unmoving, endless fog.





	Blackfell

 

 

I am writing this under an appreciable mental and physical strain, since by tonight I know I shall be no more. My earthly soul and body vacant of the spiritual love and decency I have come to value over every temptation.

 

I recount what has gone on here to warn anyone who finds this cabin. Know that this place should be burned to the ground to lay in the salted lifeless earth that surrounds it.

 

Having grown up in moderate wealth I was taught to write and read from a young age. My intense need to learn and understand nature through scientific reason has always clashed uncomfortably with my deep and unfaltering belief in God Almighty.

 

As I write to you, I must confess that I am gone mad. Perhaps my insanity has sprang from the very surrounding earth itself. Perhaps the curse of this old wooden cabin was not vanquished with the death of the previous owners and was passed to me and my dearest friend Lincoln when we signed our names to the accursed deed.

 

The unending pound-rhythm of drums in the far off woods, beasts gone feral able to speak and the fog, the almighty fog that is ceaseless in its heavy burden in my mind so thick and impenetrable as to fill my very skull with infertile soil and mistrust.

 

Foul ungodly visions of perverted nature have haunted me and my best friend, closer than my own brother ever was, to our sad and utterly dejected madness.

 

I will tell you now, any persons who consider themselves sane and God-fearing must never set foot in this vile this cabin or any other dwelling in this haunted valley.

 

My faithful brother by choice, Mr Charles Lincoln O'Neal, who I would trust with my very life, has joined me in my madness here at Blackfell cabin. He followed me in a sense of siblingship and loyal affection.

 

Lincoln has been by my side since childhood. Our fathers having been industrious owners of a cotton mill factory, we grew close in objective comfort. We became young men, Lincoln attracting the attention of young ladies with his blue gaze, well-formed countenance and seemingly oblivious charm. I, doing well enough with my taller than average stature and ruddy complexion, decided that it was time for us both to branch away from our inherited stability and move off, out of our familial homes to begin families of our own.

 

My relationship with my father has always been a strained one. My elder brother, Flint, the favoured sibling, had thought to rely on our father's monetary allowance to see him into adulthood but on word of mine and Lincoln's headstrong decision to leave, he too decided he must follow.

 

So unwilling was I to take my fathers money that I insisted Lincoln and myself pool together what funds we had raised in our coffers to purchase a ready built cabin some travel outside of town. I spoke with the keeper of the house, a Mister Robert Egger and made the necessary inquiries about the building. He said the cabin itself was strong and comfortable, with wide open windows and plenty of ground to work and walk in the surroundings.

 

A simple structure with two stories and a low roof that matched the majestic trees that surrounded it on three sides. Flat green grass and gentle sloping hills kept the home protected from harsh gales. A fire was lit in the hearth and I had watched the smoke lift from the single chimney stack above.

 

Honest. If I were to quantify the feeling the place instilled in my chest a that time it would be that very sentiment. I placed my hands on my belt and breathed in the wild, bird-song air.

 

The asking price was so low and the home stood empty for so long that I had to enquire as to the catch in the offer. When he did not speak I found myself laughing, this man was attempting to play me for a fool and I would not fall for it. I told him as much, claiming that if this home was victim to a sinking ground or woodworm I would not play victim to a scammer.

 

Egger was a younger man than I with an honest demeanour and a clean and healthy colour to his skin. He rested his palm on my shoulder in a manner overly familiar for my tastes. I was uncomfortable until he prayed me sit at the table with him to drink from his hip flask and hear what he had to tell.

 

The story he set forth as I wiped whiskey from my beard had a chill run down my spine. I am a God fearing person and despite my often excitable nature have no interest in the dark or macabre. The grizzly story of the family who owned the lot fifteen years prior was one I could not pass by. I had to know why the structure had been empty for so long.

 

Mr Egger let me know that there had been five children, their mother and their father at the cabin. They had been banished from town and built a life for themselves in the wilds near Blackfell forest.

 

When their crops had failed due to a dry spell and little to no help from the settlement some twenty miles away by cart, they had found themselves stranded and starving. Their youngest babe, Samuel, had fallen ill to a fever and had sadly died. The death took a toll on the mother and put a strain on the already struggling family bond.

 

Egger took another sip from his flask and wiped his brow as he told me of the deaths of all seven persons at the cabin. The father had been gored by their fearsome and hungry goat, the mother found dead in the woods behind the house and the four other children, one a sweet young adopted flaxen-haired girl, one a dark young boy and two younger twins never found.

 

All the animals say for the fearsome black goat were slaughtered on the farm, the floors of the cabin stained red with an ooze-like blood that had mixed with the fresh sap of wood left too long to the damp.

 

Then there was a peculiar regalement of folk stories from the town's people. Mr Egger told that some believed the family to commune with witches who lived in the surrounding forest. Some speculated that wild people, like the Natives further south, had cursed the lot when a God-fearing family had moved in and staked their wooden cross deep in the damp cursed ground.

 

The final recount was of the goat, a thick horned brute that was a familiar to the Devil himself. Most stories tell that he had whispered darkly to the children and turned them against their dear mother and father, poisoned the crops and cast a dark spell that had damned the family to a cruel and wretched end.

 

The blood of the father had been found still sticky fresh upon the pointed crown of the great beast upon the arrival of the men of the town. Subsequently, the buck had been named Black Philip and the children of the nearby settlement still sang rhymes telling of his infamous legend.

 

I had held my breath and shaken my head at what I had heard. I acquainted most of it to small-town fears of the unknown, speculation on some simple sickness that had turned the family insane to the point of destruction. It was not foolish to assume what had happened here might be the same typhoid sickness that had afflicted many other such families in the country over the years.

 

But the man's eyes were dark, his words so blankly insistent that he seemed, despite his urgency to sell the land, to be passing on the tale such as one might burn to pass on a stolen pocket watch lest one incur the blame. His story told, he calmed.

 

“You have not been able to sell the cabin in all this time?”

 

“No, sir. No sensible minded person from the town would be prepared to move themselves or their loved ones to such a cursed place.”

 

“And it has been fifteen years past since the tragic happening?”

 

“Yes, Mr Mclaughlin. Fifteen years I have held and kept the cabin.”

 

“Any strange findings since that sad time?”

 

“None of which I have seen or heard. I do not live here, of course. I have many lots to be taken care of in the county. The job takes me all over and the area is empty, no one for quite a way away. The next cabin is at least five miles west. I believe that cabin is the one purchased by your brother, Flint Mclaughlin?”

 

“Yes. My brother. I appreciate your entire disclosure on the matter, Mr Egger and as a man of sound reason I believe this cabin to be no more accursed than that fine flask you hold in your breast pocket. I will sign my name on your paper and my associate Mr O'Neal will have the money to you within the week.”

 

The contract was signed on the cabin's very table. We locked the door and rode the cart back to town. I shook his hand, like a damn fool I thanked him for his time and thought of how Lincoln and myself would build lives and families there.

 

If I had known, if I had only known what stinking wretched madness had lived in the very earth of the place I would have burned the black wooden skeleton to the ground and thanked Mr Egger for the privilege.

 

\--

 

We hired a pale mare who saw us both well to the cabin. Our two hounds, Barb and Jade, mid-sized mongrel ratting dogs, accompanied us. Barb barked and bayed in the back of our cart as we travelled. Lincoln took a shine to Jade, who spent most of the ride in his warm lap. Barb, the lighter curlier haired of the two, was therefore claimed as my own.

 

Not having much in the way of furniture, it was an easy enough task to bring our possessions inside. The small living space was neat and traditional. A large wooden table stood up against the front window. The hearth was set back against the chimney breast to the right. The stove, simple enough for even Lincoln to figure the working of, away in the west corner of the house.

 

A bed was made for the two dogs by the fire though I will confess they were allowed to sleep upstairs with us both more often than not. Perhaps we were a soft touch but the comfort of man's best friend was a welcome gift in our new home.

 

The stairs, to the left of the stove, were thick and sturdy made. They lead up, fairly narrowly to the upper floor. I had to duck, as I often must, as I ascended to the bedroom. All in one room, two beds, one for Lincoln and one, larger, for myself.

 

With plans on marrying two lovely young girls from town once our cabin was well ran, we kept our home well and planted crops of all types despite the constant fog of the season.

 

We kept good company between us and hosted my brother, Flint, every week for a supper.

 

“Not much of a crop, Rhett.” He had muttered as we three stood on the porch and smoked our pipes.

 

“More'n you've managed and you know it.”

 

The dogs scuffled together on the porch at our feet. They had become excited chasing rats that scurried quickly from them under the house. They tumbled and nipped at each other. Lincoln and I had found much entertainment betting on which dog would win when they went at it.

 

“Corn ain't the right thing to be planted here. You should know that.” Flint puffed smoke and hitched up his trousers like he was the wisest old farmer to ever tread the land. His reddish hair was still damp from the mist he had travelled through on his journey to our home.

 

Lincoln was not taken to arguing with me and my brother. He knew better than to get between us, lest he be used as a pawn to confirm our often foolish spats.

 

“Shut your mouth, you ain't got any clue as to what might grow here or not. We're trying a few different things, ain't that right, Lincoln?”

 

“I figured that potatoes will grow just about any place you throw 'em. I've planted those little suckers real deep here. All over, they're gonna be sprouting up any time now and you're welcome to share in 'em, Flint, long as you contribute somehow.”

 

Flint puffed smoke from his pipe in response. We were of an equal height but somehow his nose was often held higher. He had contracted a nasty sounding cough that I acquainted to a change in environment. Lincoln and myself were often out exploring, even when my father bade us not to get lost in the forest surrounding our childhood homes. We had both caught and fought off every flu and sickness you can catch in the wilds. Flint, a spoiled hothouse flower in comparison, almost died when he had contracted the measles at the age of seventeen. He never truly recovered to full health but his pride disavowed him from ever seeking proper medical diagnosis for his constant mild malaise.

 

“Come then, what God-awful slop have you for us tonight, Lincoln?”

 

“Soup, Flint.” Lincoln gave me an endearingly weary boggle of the eyes. “I do hope it will suit your discerning pallet.”

 

–

 

For the next week, we worked the land hard and despite our best efforts could not encourage anything to grow. Jade and Barb had done good work ratting the old goat shed and staving off any other pests from the cabin.

 

I had mucked the place out and used the space to store firewood and the several tools we had brought to till the soil. I worked hard and found myself falling into my bed every night with muddied nails and an honest ache in my back.

 

Despite my heavy sleep, I found myself stricken with dark and troubling dreams. Perhaps the story of the black goat had wormed its way into my mind to pester me. I dreamt of long and tangled forests. Of flickering orange glow and of myself bathed in light as I solicited with unseen dancing apparitions.

 

I often woke in the night with a start. I was always comforted by the presence of Barb at the foot of my bed and Lincoln snoring in the bed beside mine with Jade cuddled up close to his chest.

 

Despite Lincoln's protestations, I was victim to the stubborn pride I had inherited from my father. I could see within three weeks that our small farm was empty. Every plot we had sewn was barren.

 

“I think we could buy some type of fertilizer from the town. The general store must have something we can plough in to give these plants a chance.” Lincoln had tried to encourage me.

 

For my life I could not shift my brother's weekly taunts at the dinner table from my mind. I could hear my father's voice in his when he accused both Lincoln and myself of idiocy. Of blind endless toil.

 

He had coughed through his tirade as he had drank our whiskey. Proclamations of how well his own plot had sprouted and how disappointed our father would be when he found us struggling so badly rang in my ears every time I looked upon our frail little farm.

 

“Don't listen to your brother, Rhett. We'll see this through. We made the right choice, you'll see for yer'self.” Lincoln patted my shoulder and brought me a drink as I watched the sunset though that damned unmoving fog.

 

\--

 

 

When Flint did not arrive for our suppers for a week I assumed him to be sulking. When a fortnight passed by we took our lantern and the gun both to his home and knocked upon his door. It took us several hours to walk the few miles to his cabin, the thick, ever-present fog hindered our way and made us cautious of stumbling on fallen logs and slippery moss-covered stones.

 

We were puzzled when walking up to the building. Flint had boasted of a full and plentiful harvest from only a months work but when we arrived we saw bare and un-worked ground. The cabin itself was similar to our own but as we approached the door our light shone on a strange carved symbol by the latch.

 

Thinking the sigil to be nothing more than Flint's own scrawl, we entered without fear.

 

We found him frail and feverish in bed. Lincoln of course rushed to him and tended his brow with a cold compress. He extracted ardent tears from my brother's eyes. I was wary of contracting whatever disease had afflicted Flint and stayed back, sat in a chair with the lantern at my feet.

 

Flint was fearfully confused. He did not recognise the two of us, his own brother and lifelong friend as we had entered and he was afraid.

 

Flint said he had seen things, ghastly things like apparitions that had come to take him away into the forest. When he had refused, they had cursed him and that was the cause of his sickness. He griped Lincoln's arm painfully in a way that I found unsettling. His gaze was tired and somehow unsharp.

 

On inspection Lincoln found upon Flint's thighs several target red rash marks. I thought them to be the marks of the devil that lived out here to curse these woods.

 

My mind of course flooded back to the story Mr Egger had spoken to me. How this ground was evil and how the family had died of madness. Of a hex from witches in the woods. Of the beastly Black Goat.

 

I refrained from letting my thoughts out loud, lest I scare Lincoln any more than his shaking hands revealed. I had not told the story to my brother or my friend, they were oblivious to the terror that lived in the Earth.

 

When Lincoln asked how long the rashes had been there fat and tormented tears rolled down my brother's overheated, vessel-broken face. He confessed in quiet horror that he had gone blind and Lincoln shuddered as he took Flint's hand and looked to me for an answer, as always.

 

I saw Flint's face was waxy and one side of his mouth had a limp downward turn that spoke of an end for the man sooner rather than later.

 

As I watched him suffer, Flint fainted back in the bed of exhaustion. His panted breath and sweat dropped brow drew fear into my belly.

 

Lincoln offered a cup of water to his lips and the little water he got down caused him to vomit with a wretched poor sound of whimpering agony. His joints had swollen to a painful degree and his hair was patchy and grease laden.

 

“Call father, ask that he send a doctor, Rhett. Please.” Flint croaked. “He won't reply to you, you know how you disappoint him but he will come if you tell him I am sick.”

 

I felt my eyes burn. For the life of me my neck was ablaze with all the rage and distrust I had built for my brother in all the years spent in that lonely great childhood home of ours.

 

I had taken beatings for Flint's misbehaviour and had never confessed the truth. Flint knew I was the unwanted child and had manipulated me to take lashings on his behalf. I accepted my fate, loving my brother as I did I found honour in protecting him in my youth.

 

Watching father spoil Flint for years and making do with hand me downs and a passing pat on the shoulder when father would take Flint into his lap and stroke his hair and read to him while I wallowed in shame and the lonely unloved seclusion of childhood.

 

I was consoled by our young nanny. I thought of her as I watched Lincoln tend to Flint's overheated body. She was always kind to me as she knew of our father's favouritism. She had been stricken from the house when Flint grew to a young man.

 

I had always cared for her, made sure she was well treated and her family well kept. As a favour to her, I looked the other way when I would catch her taking coins from my father's safe box or sneaking a bottle of whiskey for her husband under her coat.

 

When I had found out from Flint that she had stolen silverware I had fought with him, urging him to keep his silence. A simple woman she had always been and I could not stand to think of him speaking unkindly of her. He would tell father and speak of her as a women who had betrayed her family and home.

 

When father had cast her out destitute, I had found I could not live in the same home as the man who had caused such reckless, unthinking pain.

 

I had suggested that Lincoln join me into the frontier to make a life for ourselves and of course, never one to be left out, Flint had insisted that he follow. When I had told father of my intention he had frowned and shaken his head, always disappointed in his youngest son's idiotic schemes.

 

When Flint had written father and told that he aimed to follow his younger brother, father had come right around. He said, upon rumination, that the pursuit of a true and Godly lifestyle in the unploughed world was something that might clean the soul and make true men of his two wild boys.

 

This all worked inside my mind as I watched Flint writhe and groan. His body seized and shuddered with pain. For once I was in power. My frustration at the impotent soil and relentless grey fog must have pushed me to madness for the first time that night. I am ashamed to confess my truth to you now but I feel it was the root cause that drove both myself and my dearest friend Lincoln to insanity.

 

“Lincoln, I will say this once and once only so you listen real good to me, now.”

 

Lincoln looked up from his place by Flint's bed. My true brother. Chosen for his courage and unending kindness to be by my side always. What I asked of him I could never ask of another and I feel guilt rise in me as I recall the events.

 

I had no mind for logical thought at that point. Weary and maddened as I was by the fog and my odd dreams that I said what I meant aloud and found myself to believe it the right course of action.

 

“You wring out that washcloth. You lay it over my brother's unseeing, Godless eyes and you walk out of this cabin . You go back home. You don't think about what we saw here and you don't ever come back to this place. You understand me?”

 

“What? You must be joking.”

 

“I said I would tell you only once. Now you leave my brother's side and you walk home, Lincoln O'Neal.”

 

Lincoln looked as though he had no clue as to what I could mean. Flint was in the throes of a feverish babbling nightmare at that point and did not react to my dark utterance in the blackened space.

 

“Rhett, he's deathly sick. You see him. He's all but blind. If this fever keeps him he'll not have a day left.”

 

“Lincoln.” I kicked over the lantern in my insistence. It was not my intention to scare him, my closest friend in the world but I had to have my way that night.

 

He flinched at the clatter, as he should have. The sideways light gave the walls dark and fearsome long shadows. Lincoln's soft hair appeared a wild and feral beast in silhouette on the wall.

 

He stood slowly. He had always known of the rivalry between us both. I could see in his eyes that he knew of my pain.

 

“Rhett. I can't.” He rang out the cloth and did cover my brother's eyes as I had asked. “I cannot in good faith leave him here. To you or to this sickness. I know you have fought and for that I am sorry but you can't ask this of me.”

 

I came forth from my chair and stood. I am a lean and tall man, it took me one step to be right up against him, hand at his shirt collar, a threat in my voice.

 

“You will do as I say, Lincoln. Just as you always have and always will. Leave us now, leave me with my brother.”

 

It sickens me to remember how I had used my size to scare him. My only friend on God's Earth, shaking and afraid because of me. My snarling grimace and the intention in my eyes must have dislodged his will to stay at Flint's side.

 

Tears welled and caught on his lashes. His hurt-filled gaze not able to meet my own.

 

He spoke not, cowering under my grip at his throat. Stepping around me to take up the lantern, he retreated.

 

I did not turn to see him leave, only heard the door creak and his steady footsteps tread off into the distance.

 

I considered taking up my gun to aim at my poor brother's head. I watched the damp cloth rise and fall in a wet flutter over his mouth. With his face obscured it was possible for me to think this man a stranger, sick and dying in his bed.

 

The groaned whimpers made it impossible for me to ignore that this swollen disfigured monster was indeed my cruel brother Flint.

 

I spent the night watching him. As the sun rose to its fog dampened height I found I could not pull my trigger. I left him there. I left my favoured, spoiled, uncaring brother to die in pain and torture. His breath was gurgled and wet when I finally stood from his bedside to leave.

 

I shut the door and did not look over my shoulder to the sigil marked house as I walked through the hills back home.

 

\--

 

I was pulled from my sleep a day or so later, one early white morning, to find Lincoln sleepwalking in the cabin in his night clothes. He was making small utterances as he scratched at the front cabin door.

 

Jade was vexed. She circled as a serpent at his feet, tangling in his ankles and growling to protect her master as I approached.

 

I shushed her and I was puzzled to find Barb was also strangely tense.

 

I attempted to rouse Lincoln but at slurred insistence that we both need leave for town I smiled at his endearingly bewildered face and guided him back upstairs to our shared bedroom, to his own bed, to sleep.

 

–

 

Our easy working camaraderie was broken. Lincoln drank to excess at night. No doubt his mind plagued him with a desperate need to put right what I had done.

 

An increase in rats on the plot was an aggravation to me. There was a nest of the fat things living under the old goat shed. I dragged Barb by her scruff to the hole in the wooden structure and stuck her little nose down in it. When she refused to dig at my encouragement I scolded her.

 

Jade appeared at her side and shoved her snout into the nest. At least ten, perhaps fifteen of the things rushed up and scattered between my feet and around Barb's head. Jade growled and snapped at them. She took at least three but Barb still refused to do her job.

 

I hollered for Jade to let go of her catch but she gnawed and tugged at the wet body of a neck-snapped rat in her grasp. When I attempted to pry the vermin from her hold she bared her teeth at me and forgot all about her pray as she came forward.

 

Barb, my curly haired mongrel, defended me and took Jade by the neck. I was upset by what occurred but I could not intervene, lest I lose a finger or catch whatever rat disease Jade held in her saliva.

 

There was a yelp and an upsetting almighty flailing of paws and hind legs. Blood was shaken against the goat shed walls and I held my hands in my hair, at a loss.

 

Lincoln approached at a run and when he reached me was as unmoving as I.

 

Yelps and yowls filled the air and there was nothing we could do as we watched Jade split Barb's throat and red gouts flooded over their bodies into the wet Earth.

 

“Jade?” Lincoln's frail voice shook. He gripped my arm and I saw tears in his eyes. “What? What happened?”

 

I stooped to drag Jade into the shed and Lincoln panicked.

 

“What are you gonna do?” He followed me and his tears dripped down his face. “Rhett, what are you doing?”

 

I shut the shed doors behind us and took up my axe.

 

“I won't let you!” Was all I heard before an almighty thud as my world went black.

 

–

 

Again I dreamt of escape into the woods. Lincoln was with me and we were young boys again. We ran and ran from the cabin, back to the fire in the forest, the dancing ghosts, the odd black beast that bid us to live as we wished.

 

Flashes of my true brother's sickened face would not let me live in happy freedom with my friend. Blood and frightening noises flooded in all around us and I saw red fur fly into the air, catch fire and fall as ash to the wet and sinking mud.

 

\--

 

I woke propped up against the shed wall. I was outside in rain. Lincoln had dragged me out and barred the door closed with Jade inside. I had a smarting bump on my head, he must have knocked me out with one of the spades we kept hung on the walls.

 

Walking was difficult for a few steps but I found my footing well as I searched the plot. I found Lincoln holding the spade with which he had attacked me, solemn and down facing. By his feet was a freshly filled Barb sized grave.

 

“Ah'm sorry, Rhett. I couldn't let you do it.” He sniffled and stuck the spade in the ground. Then, to my relief, he embraced me and we both comforted each other.

 

What chaotic horror had overtaken our hounds I did not know. Perhaps they had soaked up our shared tension and had only one outlet for all their canine madness.

 

Lincoln reached up and parted my hair to check my bruise. I followed Lincoln back to the cabin and my eyes caught on the shed door.

 

“Lincoln. What do you mean to do to me?” I begged of him, on my last weary nerve.

 

“What?”

 

“Why'd you do that to the door?”

 

I saw with confused frustration a symbol on the goat shed door, the same strange circular sigil that had been carved into my brother's cabin.

 

“Nothing. What d'you mean?”

 

“You must have done this. There's no one for miles, Lincoln. Would you have me believe the damn dogs did it?”

 

He approached the doorway and touched the marking as though he had never seen the thing before. Jade growled and scrabbled at the door inside madly.

 

“I didn't. That is to say, I haven't. I don't know what this is, Rhett.”

 

“Just go inside, Lincoln.”

 

“I swear it, Rhett. I promise I didn't do it.”

 

“Just go in. Make supper. Let me say goodbye to Barb on my own.”

 

 

\--

 

 

The next night I woke to find Lincoln out of bed. Yet again I expected to find him at the door in dreamful confusion.

 

I descended the wooden stairs and found the cabin door wide open.

 

Fearful for my friend's well being I stepped out into the muddy fields calling his name aloud. The dog, who was still locked in the shed for our own safety, was all ahowl in the night fog. I did not have my lantern, as I had bolted from bed in my rush to aid my friend.

 

I did not go back to sleep. I sat upon the porch and lit my pipe to await his return.

 

A misstep in the woods could mean a broken ankle or a shattered wrist upon falling. I trusted my brother to navigate his own fate. If he broke a leg he knew how to splint it. He could use a branch for a crutch and hobble home. If he woke in the wood lost and disorient, he would call out and the sound would carry to me with the echo of surrounding hills.

 

He could not walk far with no boots. The pain in his feet would wake him and he would turn around and come back to me.

 

I did not attend the empty plot or feed Jade that day, nor could I cook supper.

 

The lantern I left lit on the porch. If he was to return in the dark he would find the cabin by the draw of its orange light.

 

-

 

I slept fitfully and I woke in the dark to the sound of Lincoln's cries from outside the cabin. I grabbed my rifle and rushed to aide him, thanking God for his safe return at last.

 

I was horrified by what I found.

 

Lincoln's night clothes were torn and bloodied, his frame thrown painfully limp over a fence, his body painted red, his swollen lips jabbering nonsense.

 

I drew the tin bath in front of the fire and filled it as fast as I could manage from our well. I washed the filth and odd flora from his body. Bruises peppered his thighs and bloomed over his arms. His back seemed to have been lashed, thick ugly worm-like lacerations crossed his spine. He was sick, more than once, all over the hearth. I cleaned up patiently and quieted his frantic apologies.

 

He wept freely and for that I could not judge him.

 

I wiped his face and comforted him. I begged him to tell me what had occurred but his throat was raw and his mind would not dislodge his trauma to me.

 

He recovered well with a days bed rest but he was changed in some ungodly way after that.

 

His proclamations were wild and disturbing to me.

 

“Rhett, we need not toil here like this. We will never make the Earth fruitful in the way we want it to be.” Lincoln's voice was almost song-like as he slurped down the soup I had brought to him in his bed.

 

I had checked him for fever and he had taken the palm I laid on his face in his hand and kissed it.

 

“Let's give up our senseless work.” He laughed. “I am so happy here with you.”

 

“We live on a farm, Lincoln. If we don't work the land, we'll have nothing to live on. We are close to starving as it is. Rats have taken over what little grain we had stored from town.”

 

“We are welcome in the forest any time, dear brother.”

 

I am a rational man with a true belief in the Lord but what Lincoln recounted then chilled my very bones.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“The women in the forest. They wish us to live as we will. Great fires and writhing intimacies are all there, all waitin' for us. We can live together, just you and I.” He pointed to himself with a spoon full of soup and dripped the stuff unwittingly all down his bedclothes. “I'm ready to go. I want to. Why stay here in this ugly cabin thinking about how we killed your brother. Let's just leave, Rhett. I love you and I know you don't want to be here.”

 

“You keep your mouth shut.” I said.

 

“I cannot.” Lincoln carried on his speech and I saw heavy tears drip from his unfocused eyes. “I know your father loves you. I know he did not show it but you cannot let it eat at your insides like carrion, Rhett. Please. Come with me. It's so fun and it hurts but I promise you, brother, I promise you it's everything we've been dreaming of. I know you've seen it at night.”Lincoln dragged me down to his bedside. He tapped a shaking finger to my temple. “In here.”

 

I tore from his grip in a childish fear that burned my soul and had me charge from the room down the stairs and out into the fields, lest Lincoln see the fear in my heart and the tears in my eyes.

 

\--

 

I was ashamed and angry at the notion of a perverted life lived with another man, never having children as God intended for me.

 

We fought often after that. I do love Lincoln more than I can describe to you reader but what he spoke of put a fear in me I could not handle.

 

I realized at that point that Lincoln was mad but I could not leave him. If I returned to town I would be compelled to confess to Flint's murder . Lincoln and I were sworn brothers until the very end. If the fate of Blackfell be our God chosen end, then so be it.

 

A terrible trembling shook Lincoln at night and I found I could not bear to leave his side. Despite his strange ramblings I allowed him to sleep in my own bed. It was almost like those many nights we spent as young boys sleeping at each other's homes.

 

We would giggle and speak softly in the night so as not to be scolded. Talk of girls and of fanciful things boys speak of were some of my most cherished memories with my dear Lincoln.

 

A sad mockery was the reality. A full grown man clung to me in terror as he babbled and cried of things done to him in the woods. I could not discern much from his garbled tearful sleeping rambles say a few words that still now have me shake and my skin prickle in my candlelight at the memory.

 

“Witches...Poor Flint...Black Goat.”

 

 

–

 

 

I had woken several nights to see Lincoln leave my bed and wander to the woods. He would return to me by morning, welt-covered and madly euphoric. Whoever it was that lived in these woods, they were playing a terrible game with us. I still found it impossible to believe there might be witches and devils out there.

 

Jade would growl and bark through the day and Lincoln would tell me what she was saying.

 

It scared me and I wanted to tell him to stop but her growls brought him sweet respite from tearful despair. He translated her whining for me into a sad sort of plea as he leant against the shed.

 

“She's begging us to let her out.” He said, a frown on his face. “She's so lonely. Oh, Jade. I know you miss sleeping in my bed, don't you, girl.”

 

She licked at his fingers through the slats in the door.

 

“And you want to come to the forest with me, don't you. Yes. I know Rhett is afraid, isn't he. He doesn't think we can be happy here.”

 

I willed myself to be kind to Lincoln. His madness was my doing after all. Flint's death had taken a toll on his mind that I could not have anticipated and the dreadful fog and lonely forest was too much for his kind manner to withstand.

 

So I watched each night as Lincoln left our bedroom in a dreamy daze. Each time he returned he was more convinced that our happiness lay in wait in the woods. It took me an entire week to work up courage to follow.

 

Here is my honest fleeting recount of the one night that I did.

 

I was afraid. I had consumed at least a half bottle of our strong whiskey and I had my gun and my good walking boots. I did not take the lantern. I did not wish to be seen.

 

I found Lincoln opening the shed door. I gasped, believing Jade to be feral and diseased. She was starving and a dog with an empty belly follows no command.

 

She bounded towards Lincoln and jumped up. I made to call out to him in terror, only for him to fall to the ground and welcome the seemingly harmless pup with open arms. She licked his face and he cooed to her in delight. He called her his “sweet babe” and kissed her wet nose.

 

He asked her most politely to sit. And she did, almost unnaturally. He asked her to stand and she drew up onto her back legs to do an excited little jig, tail wagging and tongue lolling from her mouth.

 

Lincoln then lead her, disturbingly obedient as she was, into the forest. Lincoln removed his white bedclothes and hung them upon a tree branch.

 

“We all descended from the one great being.” I heard him recount. “Before people lived and named it. Before the first seeds sprouted.”

 

Naked, his skin was aglow in the moon and he walked steadily through the foggy tangled wood. I held my rifle close as I followed him and the little ratting dog.

 

I was petrified to see a fire ahead and hear all means of cackling and hooting and howling. My eyes wide, I approached slowly many feet behind Lincoln and Jade.

 

I remained behind a large old growth tree to watch Lincoln approach the fire and start to laugh.

 

Before me I witnessed my nightmare. Women, from where they had come I did not know, had congregated, gyrating and moaning upon sticks before the ritual fires. They beat loud skinned drums in rhythm and for the life of me I did not know why I had not previously heard the ominous pounding. A dark man with a scruffy beard and shaggy hair sat beyond the fire to watch.

 

Pine and spruce trees towered above. Looming great giants aglow with orange fireflies spat up into the fray from the unholy bonfire below. I could see the stars, for the first time since we moved into the damned Blackfell the fog did not obscure my view of black and endless space.

 

A young, flaxen-haired woman seized Lincoln's shoulders and threw him to the floor. He laughed and writhed on the leaf-littered ground as she mounted him and I had to cover my own mouth as I watched them all engage in unnatural sin.

 

Never had I seen such a hellish ritual. Lincoln's skin was torn with sharp nails and his wailing devilish ecstasy was sickening to me. I knew Lincoln to be a gentle soul, not a lecherous bone in his body but with his grabbing hands full of pale flesh and wild eyes writhing in his skull I could not bear to accept this as reality.

 

These were not just young maidens in a wild heat frenzy, older women had their hands upon him too. They marked him with red pigment in disturbing sigils I recognized as the witchcraft that had marked my brother's door and the goat shed back home.

 

A bird, some type of bird, was held aloft. It fluttered and cried out above the fire in the clutches of one of the hell cursed women. Brought over Lincoln's body it was dispatched quickly with a sharp and glinting knife. Its blood rained down over my friend's body and the women seemed to go wild with the act, all writhing and screaming their depraved joy.

 

Then, and I swear to the Lord I tell the truth of what occurred, I heard the far-off braying of a large and fearsome goat. Garbled and unholy, the call of a buck in the black forest chilled me till my very soul turned inside my body and brought terrified vomit to the back of my throat.

 

I could not stay. Terrified for Lincoln as I was I could hardly hold my rifle in both of my hands as I turned to leave. I did not wait for the writhing bodies before the fire to finish their Godless prayer. I hurried back through the woods to my bed. I did not even remove my boots. I shut my eyes, held my gun close to my chest and feigned sleep, lest whatever unearthly creature lives out there came to find me and take what I owe for having witnessed Lincoln's shameful sin.

 

I was fearfully aware of my own heartbeat until the sun rose and I heard Lincoln return. I came downstairs and saw him in his clean white bedclothes with a pleased smile upon his face. Jade sat begging at his feet, she pawed at his legs.

 

He made breakfast. A few slices of stale bread toasted on the hearth.

 

“Lincoln?” I could feel the sweat gather under my arms. “How did your knees get so muddied? And your face. Where did all this blood come from?”

 

“Can't you guess?” He tore at the bread and bent down to Jade, offering her the food for which she was begging.

 

“I do not want to.”

 

“I have never really felt pleasure, before. I have felt joy and relief and happiness with you but never in all my life have I really been free.”

 

“Stop it.”

 

“Don't you want that, Rhett?”

 

Jade sat quietly under the table and watched us with dark eyes.

 

“I can't believe what I've seen. Perhaps I've been drinking too much. We both have.”

 

“No. I don't think so.”

 

“We're mad, Lincoln. We've both come down with whatever took my brother.”

 

“I have no rashes or pain in my body. I feel more well than I've ever been.”

 

“We're starved. This is a sickness that our weakened minds are trying to fight.”

 

“Hush.” Lincoln came to me and I held my rifle tight against my chest between us. “Let me ease your worry, Rhett.”

 

He whispered to me, dark things about black fur and horns and a potion to make me feel well again. His hands found my shoulders and rubbed at my aching tension. I was too tired to resist and an uneasy moan left my lips.

 

“That's it.” He was close to me, so close that I shivered in his arms. “Come with me. Next time. I promise you'll never want to come back.”

 

“God, please, have mercy on me.”

 

It was my intention to pull the trigger. I had both hands on my gun and they shook. I willed myself to raise my weapon and dispatch him quick and painless as he deserved. I could not bear to watch him so madly changed by hellish magic.

 

“Aren't you tired?” He spoke softly in my ear and I felt his cold nose stroke along my neck. “Come to bed. We both need to rest.”

 

–

 

The next day I sat on our porch and listened to the distant sound of drums. It never ended. I heard it in my chest as well as it rang in my ears. They were out there, those women. Witches. And their unholy master, the great Black Goat himself.

 

I sat and smoked the last of my tobacco, knowing my time grew short. Lincoln came to sit with me. His white night clothes muddied at the bottom. He lifted his bare legs to tuck beneath him in his chair.

 

“Do you wish we had never come?” I asked of him.

 

“I'd follow you anywhere.”

 

“Lincoln.” I struggled to keep the fear from my voice but the salt gathering in my eyes betrayed me. “Are we going to die here?”

 

“Oh, Rhett.” His arm went around my shoulder and he held me close. “Everything ends. Our crops. Barb. Your brother. They all died. As will we, someday. I cannot say when but I am sure that when I find peace, it will be by your side or with you at least in my heart, dear brother.”

 

His maddened talk had a sliver of truth to it. I do love Lincoln more than any other soul on the Earth. God alone can see into my heart and judge me for the crimes I've committed and punish me however he sees fit.

 

My hair was stroked and Lincoln rocked us both gently as he hummed some sweet tune from our youth. Then, with his fingers in my hair, he brought up my face and I kissed him.

 

–

 

As I write this recount I am starving. Our poor farm still barren and the drums in the distance beat so as to drive me more mad with each moment that passes. I cannot stay here and I cannot return to town. Father, I pray that you might forgive me for what I have done. Do not blame Lincoln for his madness or his inability to stop the guilt that has eaten away at us both.

 

If this is some strange typhoid affliction I cannot feel sickness in my belly nor fever at my brow. I feel only the chill of fear at the back of my neck. We have gone through our supply of grain and whiskey and there is nothing here to keep us.

 

He comes for me now through the forest and I know it. I will go with him. I will go with him because I want him in the way he has asked for me. Possessed by the Devil or mad with guilt at the crime we have both committed, it does not matter. We are both cursed to be together with our sin, fall prey to whatever monsters live in this wood and remain together in death, in godless life, in matrimony with Satan's hellish nature as our chapel.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope that you enjoyed the schlock and have a great new year! <3


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